10 Best Practices for Live Streaming Production

Even when all the content, talent, cameras, lighting, and audio are worked out, live streaming event production is far from over. The workflow to get the signal from the camera to the viewing audience can make or break the production.

There’s no single solution that fits all budgets and types of events. But in this article I will review some of the best practices and tips to make sure your live event streams go off without a hitch. I’ll cover some information that should be useful to beginners but hopefully more advanced producers will learn something new as well.

These tips come from interviews with industry experts, discussions from panels I’ve moderated at Streaming Media conferences, and my own experiences.

1. There’s More Than One Way to Do It

First off, a warning. There is not just one way to do it. There are literally hundreds. The perfect solution for one event might not make any sense for another.

“Don’t limit yourself to a single workflow,” says Dylan Armajani, who works in digital workflow technologies at Viacom, “and get to know the tools and technology that’s at your fingertips.”

With all the encoding and transmission options now available, Armajani says “you really can stream live from just about anywhere in the world on just about any budget and at least have your content show up online. The challenge really becomes weighing the cost vs. quality vs. possible points of failure and determining what workflow is optimal for your show.” read more...